The Knight and the Rook
by Polly Oliver
Summary: THIS USED TO BE 'IT ALL BEGAN WITH A MIND MELD' ! ! ! Spock finds himself suffering from a mysterious emotion in the presence of Captain Kirk. SLASH but not a lemon. KirkSpock. Reviews are appreciated greatly, and I'll reply and everything!
1. Spock: That Unnameable Emotion

**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of these characters, and I have no money, so don't sue.

**Warning:** Contains m/m slash. Not a lemon. Don't like it, don't read it.

**Author's Note:** Starts from Spock's perspective. From then on, POV changes are noted, but that's not for a couple chapters. Also, I'm terribly off in some of my details, most prominently that of the Mind Meld. I _have_ watched a lot of Star Trek, but mostly it was a long time ago and TNG as opposed to TOS. So just think of these things as my own interpretations of the various trekky phenomena. Oh, and I don't have a particular timeline to place this in. Let's say it could be an alternate universe, one that splits off after some unnoticed but key decision.

The Knight and the Rook

Chapter One: That Unnameable Emotion

A Mind Meld: to join minds with another person—very personal, very intimate. But despite the naked access it gives one into another's mind, the closeness it allows two people to achieve—despite this, the effect on the people involved is usually mutual indifference, or perhaps only comfortable—and complete—familiarity.

Friends who Meld once usually remained friends; some grow apart, some grow closer. Lovers do not often Meld, because it has a habit of ending passion in friendship. Enemies grow indifferent, without hatred or affinity. People of uneven affection or dislike soon regain equilibrium.

To Mind Meld with another is to _become_ them, for an hour, to know their darkest secrets, their most dearly held desires—no, to _have_ their secrets and their desires. It is to be in complete sympathy with that person for a moment.

Since most people cannot truly loathe or passionately love themselves, those who have _been_ them can do neither likewise—at least in most cases. Betrayal is experienced from the traitor's point of view, and forgiven, or forgotten. Trust becomes irrelevant when all one's secrets are revealed. Passion dissipates, whether in love or in hatred.

This is why I suggested a Mind Meld to the captain when I noticed that my immediate reactions to his actions—his personal endeavors—were beginning to cloud my judgments, as well as my opinion of him.

He had always been a great lover of women, and since was very handsome according to the standards of most, he was generally very successful in this regard. I had known this about him for a very long time, and while I never understood completely, mine being a very different set of circumstances than his, it never interested me particularly unless it interfered with the ship's mission or his and others' safety.

Recently, though, his proclivity for what I must call seduction or something very like it—the connotations associated with words humans use for emotional, romantic, or sexual relationships I find most complex and illogical, and I do not quite trust myself to use them aptly—began to fascinate me inordinately. I paid closer attention than ever before to his behavior around women. I did not like what I observed.

His actions seemed to me to be foolish, impulsive, even self-destructive, since always, we had to leave behind the particular someone that he appeared to care for deeply. The actions of all these particular someones seemed to be similarly irresponsible, unless they knew nothing beforehand of his inevitable departure, and I thought it reprehensible of him to continue to "lead them on" as I have heard others say.

Also it began to occur to me that someday, the captain might not choose to leave. He might someday decide that his love was of more value to him than the interests of the crew, the ship, and the Federation as a whole. I knew him—I know him—to be much more an asset to the Federation than simply the captain of one of its ships: replaceable, expendable, and soon forgotten. It is no coincidence that some of the most momentous occasions in recent Federation history have happened under his command, aboard his ship, or with his involvement. He is quite an extraordinary man.

Upon reflection, I found that my observations, though they might have some truth in them, were becoming judgmental and disapproving in the extreme. As Bones might have said, I was becoming a busybody. I found this inappropriate and unwarranted, especially since I had never come to these conclusions before, when the captain had acted in the same manner. It was I who had changed, not him. The disapproving thoughts I was having reminded me strongly of the way a jealous lover is said to feel.

When I suggested a Mind Meld to Jim, his answer was flatly no. He didn't want us to grow indifferent, he said, and he respected my secrets and had no desire to pry into my mind. He wanted to know why I found it important to Meld with him, if I had some sort of grudge to dispel, but I did not reply. I had not explained my reasons to him before my request. I did not know why. My actions were growing more illogical by the day, my thoughts more inscrutable. I wondered occasionally if it was not time to return to Vulcan to complete my cycle once more, but I knew _that_ was still four years off.

I became filled with dread and some unnameable emotion each time I went near my Captain and each time I thought of him, which happened more often all the time. I brooded over the carelessness of his passions, and over the increasing irrationality of my fascination with them. I had been to Dr. McCoy more than once to discuss these matters with him, but he seemed as mystified as me.

Perhaps it is my human side, he suggested, worrying needlessly that my friendship with Jim would end in one of his numerous affairs. That would never happen, he said. Jim is a loyal man.

This did not seem to be a logical explanation, since Jim has rarely distanced himself from us when he believed himself to be in love. And yet the idea of Jim in love disturbed me increasingly.

The doctor gave me a long, piercing glance when I told him this. I could not easily interpret his expression, but suspicion and unease seemed contained in his gaze, and possibly something like compassion, or perhaps sorrow.

I lived for a few weeks more with the painful and baffling anomaly of a troubled mind, and then I approached my Captain once more—with an ultimatum. I told him that we must either Meld and resolve my turmoil finally, or that I must resign as first officer and leave the ship. I believed that those were the only two options available; otherwise, I would have been unfit to serve.

Jim seemed surprised and alarmed by my proposal, but he quickly agreed to a Mind Meld, with, he said, severe misgivings.

We proceeded right away. Physically, a Mind Meld is very easily done, and not at all taxing: one simply places one's fingertips on the other's head and the implants and associated circuitry that run through each nervous system (among which are our universal translators) connect the neural maps of each brain.

Mentally, and, I am forced to say, emotionally, however, a Mind Meld does not leave one unscarred.

I do not know for how long we sat in Jim's office, grasping each other's temples across the desk, breathing hard, but it seemed at once a lifetime and a nanosecond. I saw all of Jim's life and memories as though I had lived them all and was then merely accessing them; I _was_, in essence, Jim. His life began to make a sort of sense to me that I still remembered later if I concentrated hard enough—a heavily emotional existence will always be foreign and highly illogical to me.

His thoughts were mine; my thoughts his. I remembered his loves, his losses, his anger, his pain and despair; and I knew then that I too had experience these things, through him. Our thoughts became reflective as the part of us that was mostly him began to recognize that unnameable emotion I had experienced, miserably and recurrently, in his presence. We then began, somewhat reluctantly, to look into Jim's own emotions regarding me, and we found that though they had most often been very similar to his friendship with Dr. McCoy—Bones, as he thought of him—but that subtly, something was different about them, something that had been growing for a good while at that point, unacknowledged, misunderstood, like a weed stretching out tentative roots in the dark.

We didn't register any time between the moment that realization came upon us in a flash, and the moment we were suddenly connected, even more intensely than through the Meld—connected in emotion, in desire, in physical distance. We were kissing, that previously unnamed emotion I began to call infatuation, or possibly love, or maybe lust, echoing and rebounding between our Melded minds. Everything that I had been feeling culminated in this prolonged moment of mutual passion.

I said earlier that Mind Melds contribute more often to indifference between the involved parties than to passion, but that is only after the Meld, when the lasting effects set in. During a Meld, feelings are likely to intensify, passions and pain to heighten. Afterwards, everything is integrated into each person's consciousness and voluntary intimacy is rarely still desired.

When we moved, as one, to shed our garments in our newfound frenzy of infatuation—or love, or lust, if it was one of those instead—the Meld was broken, and Jim and I broke apart, and we sat for a long time, staring at one another, shocked at what we had just felt. Well, I speak for myself at least; as for him, I can only assume. The feelings had passed of course; I now felt for the captain the same way I always had, before my turmoil began. He was my Captain; I was honor bound to serve him faithfully; and we were good friends. That was all.

I got up to leave and at the door I said, "I shall be in my quarters, Captain. If you wish it, I will continue on in my capacity here. I think I can perform my duties adequately from now on."

The captain drew down his eyebrows in thought and dismissed me with, "Yes, Mr. Spock, I think that will do for now. We must discuss this…later…" in a faint, distracted voice.

I left and returned to my quarters, where I slept in renewed calm, and didn't trouble myself further about the matter of my most unusual recent fixation on the captain. However, my respite was short-lived.


	2. Spock: Complications

**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of these characters, and I have no money, so don't sue.

**Warning:** Contains m/m slash. Not a lemon. Don't like it, don't read it.

It All Began with a Mind Meld

Chapter Two: Complications

For days, neither the captain nor I mentioned our exchanges in his office, and I was content to let the matter rest, resuming my duties as first officer without a break—and with much less prejudice and distraction than before.

Though the captain seemed more distant than usual, I made nothing more of it than that our encounter had made him uncomfortable and that he was trying to forget it.

That, as it turns out, was a more accurate assessment than even I knew.

Our Mind Meld had caused him much more confusion than I ever would have predicted, even had I been aware of the nature and the extent of our feelings prior to the bond. Certainly he was more upset about it than I. Very strange, given his much more extensive experience with romantic entanglements and feelings of this variety. This experience, however, seemed to do him no good in our circumstances. I didn't know if it was because I was male, a Vulcan (that I doubted from the range of his earlier relationships), his first officer, or his friend. I suspected a combination.

"Dammit, Spock!" he shouted after calling me to his quarters under pretense of discussing our current mission. "You act as though nothing has happened! Doesn't it bother you—at all?"

"Sir?" I replied, not immediately recognizing what he referred to.

He glared at me in response. "You know very well what I'm talking about. The—Mind Meld. You don't find it—" his mouth twisted at the understatement— "unusual?"

"Of course, Captain," I said. "But the point of it was to dispel any unease on either of our parts. I see it has not been successful with you, though I know that you must fully understand the circumstances by now—surely you do not still feel any of the…after-effects? The—infatuation?"

"_Infatuation?_" exclaimed the captain. "Is that the clinical word you're using for it? Well, I suppose I knew that already, from the Meld…but hearing you say it feels funny…"

There was a pause wherein he scrutinized me closely.

"And what's with you calling me 'Captain' again? I know you called me 'Jim' in your head for a while before the…" he trailed off. "Do you not feel comfortable with me, even after," he grimaced, "all this?"

I was taken aback. "I hadn't thought about it, sir. Before my apparent infatuation with you I believe I always thought of you as the captain. Sometimes as Jim. I didn't know my formality bothered you." Which was saying a great deal, since we had Melded only a few weeks earlier. The captain—Jim—must have changed his mind since then.

But Jim no longer appeared to be listening. He was muttering to himself and clenching his fist, as though trying to convince himself to do something.

"Alright," he said, with finality. "I have made a full account of this in my personal log, so there can be no lasting damage after the procedure. I am going to attempt a selective mind wipe in order to lose all subjective memory of the Meld. I would offer you the same, but you're not nearly as disturbed by it as I am." His tone seemed to suggest that I was not nearly as disturbed as I ought to be.

"That would be _extremely_ ill-advised, Captain! As first officer, I cannot allow you—"

Suddenly, the ship gave a tremendous lurch and the captain and I fell to the ground. The lights went out, and the ever-present electric hum that meant the Enterprise was functioning properly—dimmed, 'til only the rhythmic murmur of the emergency life support could be heard.

I called to the captain, "Sir? Are you injured?" but I received no answer.

Quickly, I picked myself up and walked over to where he sprawled on the floor, obscured my original position by a low table with a glass top. Unconscious. I knelt down beside him and checked his vital signs. He was breathing, but shallowly, and broken glass was scattered on the floor around his head; he must have hit his head on the table as he fell and smashed it. I checked the other side of his head. There was a terrible, jagged gash above his ear. It was bleeding profusely and full of tiny pieces of glass.

A ghostly, fluorescent glow lit the captain's face and threw stark shadows in the hollows of his eyes as the backup systems shuddered to life.

A short, subaudible buzz like an electronic clearing of throat announced that the network was online and preparing to speak. Then, "Bridge to Captain Kirk. As I'm sure you're aware, there has been a collision of some kind. We are not yet certain what it is, but it was very destructive. We need you at the bridge. Respond, please."

I tapped my communicator. "Spock to bridge. The captain is unconscious and requires attention at sickbay. I will take him there first and then join you at the bridge. Spock out."


	3. Kirk: Amnesia

**Disclaimer:** You don't own me, I don't own the characters, don't sue me because I'm a turnip and I'm sorry if you're a vampire, but I HAVE NO BLOOD TO GIVE!

**Warning:** Contains m/m slash. Not a lemon. More of a…passionfruit? Wait that's cheesy. Don't like it, don't read it.

**Author's Note:** Sorry about the delay: bit of writer's block. Started writing ch3 from Spock's perspective, then got a better idea, then was distracted from actually WRITING the story by my inability to get Kirk's voice right. (And I got a new fanfic idea…kind of a weird one. And visitors for about a week. The annoying old RW interfering again.) So Kirk's voice is actually a lot more like _my_ voice than his own, that is, if I were a character in the story; possibly he's the author surrogate, the dreaded Mary Sue. Ha, oh well. By the way, did you know this is my first ever fanfic?

The Knight and the Rook

Chapter Three: Amnesia

KIRK:

I came to myself in sickbay, dragging fragments of thought up from a swirling blackness. Distantly, I felt the remnants of anger, tension, and creeping anxiety, as though remembered from a dream. Spock. Had I been dreaming about Spock? No, that wasn't it.

I brought my hands up to rub my very sore head, trying to remember how it got that way and what it was, exactly, that was nagging at me—then I gasped aloud as my fingers pressed on a—wound?—above my left ear, through a thin layer of bandages. Ouch. What a gash. Bones must've really given Spock the what-for (the corner of my mouth twitches slightly; I wish I'd been awake to see that!) after I fell on that glass table…which reminds me of why I was injured: I fell on a glass table. Why did I keep that thing anyway? It was an accident just waiting to happen…or in this case, one that _had_ happened.

Wait a second. I reprocessed those last few thoughts. Accident waiting to happen…table…falling…Spock…Bones…Spock! That was it. We had been in my quarters, discussing…something…and then the lights went out, and the ship lurched, and there was the sound of breaking glass…and then here I was.

But what had Spock and I been talking about?

It was no good. I couldn't remember. I knew vaguely that it was a very intense sort of conversation, with heightened emotions, shouting, all that bit—well, at least on my part…Spock, curses upon the pointy-eared hobgoblin…as Bones would say, probably hadn't batted an eye—but for the life of me I couldn't fathom the _subject_ of the conversation. Perhaps seeing Spock again would jog my memory, but for now I was going to let the matter rest. Seeing as there was, apparently, if the lurch and the power failure were any clues, a Situation at hand.

I sat up slowly, still feeling a bit sore. If I could see the skin on my left side, no doubt I would notice purple bruises blooming across the surface. But other than that, my grievous head injury, and a couple of scratches on my left arm, where shards of glass had torn through the sleeve of my uniform, I felt perfectly fine.

I wondered how long I had been in sickbay. With any luck, I hadn't been in here long, an aide had seen to me (rather than the CMO himself), and I would be able to escape without Bones noticing to take care of the Situation, whatever it was. But as soon as I hopped off the medical cot and began walking toward the door, I heard a crotchety voice from behind me call out,

"And just where do you think _you're_ going?" I winced and turned around to see that Bones had stepped into the room from an adjoining one, a medical aide in tow.

"To command my ship. What did you think?" I said with as deadpan a face as I could muster, hoping he would be subdued by my imperious tone. He wasn't, though.

"Oh no you're not," he said almost gleefully, gesturing to the aide to steer me back to my cot (I shook him off and went voluntarily). "At least not until I've done a few scans on that head of yours. That was some fall, Jim. Mighty careless of you." He raised an eyebrow at me reprovingly as I sat down.

"Careless?" I repeated. "Well, yes. I guess it was. I'm sure _you_ didn't fall, Doctor, when the ship lurched sideways half its length. Speaking of which," I frowned in thought as he moved his medical scanner in slow circles around my head, "can you fill me in on what happened? I assume Spock took command while I was out cold."

McCoy's worried expression made my insides clench.

"What happened, Bones?" I said urgently. "Was there an attack? We're still in Federation space, right? There wasn't a—"

Bones shook his head dismissively. "Oh, yes, we're still in Federation space alright—there wasn't any kind of attack. But Jim—the ship's damaged pretty bad. It was just some kind of space debris that hit us, but Spock's got whole teams of engineers out repairing the hull and the damaged shipboard systems, and Scottie still can't figure out what went wrong with the ship computer. It doesn't look good, Jim. Not good at all." He dropped his right hand, the one holding the medical scanner, to his side, and added, "You seem to be doing okay apart from that gash and a mild concussion. You'll be sore for a while, but I see no reason not to let you out of here after a couple days observation."

"McCoy! My ship is in serious trouble and you want to keep me here for a little bump on the head?!" I took a deep breath to argue further (if I knew Bones, he wasn't going to let me out of sickbay without a fight), but just then Spock walked in and I was momentarily distracted.

"Dr. McCoy…" he began, then spotted me. A wave of dizziness rushed through me as our eyes connected. I remembered...something, but I couldn't tell what. I shook my head to clear it of the sudden fog--a bad move on my part; my head was still sore--and interrupted Spock as he started to speak, all thoughts of the impending disaster driven from my mind in the face of this perplexing mystery.

"Mr. Spock," I said, my as-yet-unaccountable suspicion prompting formality, "what were we discussing in my quarters just before the ship lurched?"


	4. Bones: The Third Wheel

**Disclaimer:** You don't own me, I don't own the characters, don't sue me because I'm a turnip and I'm sorry if you're a vampire, but I HAVE NO BLOOD TO GIVE!

**Warning:** Contains m/m slash. Not a lemon. More of a…passionfruit? Wait that's cheesy. Don't like it, don't read it.

**Author's Note:** This is kind of a filler chapter, but filler chapter is better than no chapter, I reckon. And it builds character. Now you kind of know what Bones thinks about …you know. Stuff. Also, I'm pretty sure I completely forgot that there was a medical aide in the room with them, so you should too. Or you can pretend he left when Bones did.

The Knight and the Rook

Chapter Four: The Third Wheel

BONES:

Spock gave Jim one of those funny inscrutable looks of his and didn't say anything. His gaze flickered unconsciously to me, and Jim's followed a moment later, puzzled. So he didn't want to say anything in front of me, did he? Well, I got the hint. Ridiculous Vulcan reserve! I'm no busybody, but I like to know things, and I was curious about what kind of notions a forgotten conversation could conjure up that would make Jim forget all about the state of the ship.

Jim continued to stare Spock down. Spock cleared his throat, about to plough into whatever explanation or evasion he had ready to answer with in my presence, but I cut in first.

"Well, I reckon I ought to get started on the medical reports for all the others who were injured during the collision. Spock, you keep him here" (this with a jerk of the thumb at Jim) "—I'll be in my office," I said with as bad a grace as I could muster.

Spock turned to watch me go (I felt his eyes prickle the hair on the back of my neck), but Jim didn't even seem to notice, his eyes locked searchingly on Spock's face. I harrumphed to myself, hoping Jim would explain all this to me later.

Unless…well if it had anything to do with _that_, I didn't want to know about it. I mean, earlier, about a week ago I guess, Spock had seemed…but that was different. It was too bad, then, but he snapped out of it pretty quickly. Surely that had nothing to do with their little discussion.

Trying to put it out of my mind, I began to work on the mountain of medical reports.


End file.
